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Immigration officers claimed Vivian Alvarez Solon was a sex
slave who wanted to return to the Philippines even though she told
staff she had a visa and wished to stay in Australia.

Ms Alvarez Solon, an Australian citizen, was deported to the
Philippines four years ago after the Department of Immigration and
Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) wrongfully believed
her to be an illegal immigrant.

The Palmer report revealed yesterday that a note in Ms Alvarez
Solon's Immigration Department file stated she was smuggled into
Australia as a sex slave, had been physically abused and wanted to
return to the Philippines. "At present there is no indication that
she ever made this claim; it seems to be an assumption on the part
of a DIMIA officer," former police commissioner Mick Palmer said in
his report.

He said it conflicted with a formal interview between Ms Alvarez
Solon and Immigration Department officers on July 13, 2001
¡ª a week before she was deported ¡ª when she
claimed to have a visa and stated she would like to stay in
Australia and did not wish to leave voluntarily.

In May this year Ms Alvarez Solon, 42, was found in Olongapo
City in the Philippines by an Australian priest who recognised her
photo from an ABC satellite news telecast. She had been living at
the Sisters of Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity convent,
where the sisters run a hospice for the dying.

However, the Palmer report said immigration officers were aware
as early as two years before her discovery that she was a missing
person from Australia. It said that during July 2003, the
Queensland Police asked the Immigration Department to make further
inquiries about Ms Alvarez Solon and her photograph was shown on
the Channel Nine Without a Trace program.

"It is clear that several DIMIA officers ¡ª including
executive-level officers ¡ª became aware in 2003 and 2004
that the Vivian Alvarez removed from Australia on 20 July 2001 was
the person publicised on television on 20 August 2003 and she was
an Australian citizen," the report said.

Mr Palmer said the removal of Ms Alvarez Solon strongly
corroborated and confirmed the systemic nature of the problems
identified by the inquiry into mentally ill Australian resident
Cornelia Rau, who was wrongfully detained in a Brisbane prison and
Baxter detention centre for 10 months.

The report found that Ms Alvarez Solon first came to the
attention of immigration officers when a social worker found her
wandering the streets in Lismore, NSW, physically injured and
apparently destitute.

Immigration Department records note that Ms Alvarez Solon gave
her name as Vivian Alvarez (her maiden name) and said she had come
to Australia on a spouse visa and had been beaten by her
husband.

When immigration databases revealed no record of a Vivian
Alvarez entering Australia, officials detained her as an "unlawful
non-citizen".

A doctor assessed her as fit to travel even though she had been
discharged from hospital a week earlier with incomplete
quadriplegia and used a walking frame to get around.

On July 20 she was deported, the day after the Queensland Police
missing person's bureau sent a fax to an immigration officer
searching for a person of Filipino extraction called Vivian
Solon/Young.

Mr Palmer said a competent systems search using her first name
Vivian would have returned the Australian citizenship records for
Vivian Solon, along with the correct date of birth. "DIMIA staff
seem to have a generally poor understanding ¡­ of how to
search for and obtain information," the report said.

"A particular concern is that ¡ª even in the light of
all the facts that are now publicly known about the handling of
Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez ¡ª a preoccupation with
process and a culture of denial and defensiveness continues to
exist. Throughout all aspects of the inquiry there was consistent
evidence of reluctance at middle management and senior executive
management levels to accept responsibility and acknowledge
fault."

Ms Alvarez Solon's lawyer, George Newhouse, said the
department's treatment had been brutal and inhuman. "The suggestion
she was a sex slave was the fantasy of a prepubescent officer
within DIMIA" when he set eyes on a Filipina.

Mr Newhouse said Ms Alvarez Solon co-operated with departmental
officers at all times, but received nothing but contempt. "DIMIA
officers even tossed aside her walking frame in the rush to deport
her."

Mr Newhouse said he would not accept Prime Minister John
Howard's apology for Ms Alvarez Solon's treatment until he
committed to bringing her home from the Philippines with a care
package that lasted for longer than six months. "Until then, they
are just crocodile tears," he said.